United States

First2 Network, a National Science Foundation INCLUDES Alliance originating in WV, aims to improve the retention and success of undergraduate STEM students, with emphasis on rural first-generation students through their first two years of college. At the core of our shared vision to improve student STEM success is the assumption that the students themselves will be co-creators of the solutions.
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First2 Network includes higher education teams of students, faculty, staff and administrators, as well as government, industry, K12, non-profit and community partners across the state of West Virginia and beyond. Members engage in improvement science, a disciplined way to collaboratively test and scale ideas for changing systems. Selected high impact practices include short-duration summer immersive programs for rising freshmen (Jandy et al., 2021), campus clubs with change ideas led by students, and student ambassador programs to high schools and legislature. Student members who persist in their STEM majors have stronger ties to the network. (Darrah et al., 2022)
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This colloquium will focus on sharing strategies for keeping student voice and leadership central in a large broadening participation network. We will present the First2 model and learnings from the past 5 years, and invite discourse around the experiences of other colloquium attendees.

15th Conference on Understanding Interventions 2023 

Centering a change network in lived realities: A discussion led by First2 Network

First2 Network, a National Science Foundation INCLUDES Alliance originating in WV, aims to improve the retention and success of undergraduate STEM students, with emphasis on rural first-generation students through their first two years of college. At the core of our shared vision to improve student STEM success is the assumption that the students themselves will be co-creators of the solutions.
 
First2 Network includes higher education teams of students, faculty, staff and administrators, as well as government, industry, K12, non-profit and community partners across the state of West Virginia and beyond. Members engage in improvement science, a disciplined way to collaboratively test and scale ideas for changing systems. Selected high impact practices include short-duration summer immersive programs for rising freshmen (Jandy et al., 2021), campus clubs with change ideas led by students, and student ambassador programs to high schools and legislature. Student members who persist in their STEM majors have stronger ties to the network. (Darrah et al., 2022)
 
This colloquium will focus on sharing strategies for keeping student voice and leadership central in a large broadening participation network. We will present the First2 model and learnings from the past 5 years, and invite discourse around the experiences of other colloquium attendees.

technical paper

### Welcome to the 2023 Understanding Interventions/NSF CREST Annual Conference
Welcome to our annual conference, a gathering where the knowledge of our scientific communities share what they have researched since we last met. If it is your first time attending, then thank you for stepping into our world! If you are a returning guest, then thank you for coming back! Whether you are attending for the first or the fourteenth, we treasure your trust in what we have to offer. We promise to make it worth your while.

As in years past, we have put together an energetic collection of seminars, deeper dives, speeches, posters, and workshops to whet your appetite for learning. 

We are delighted that you have chosen to attend the 2023 Annual Understanding Interventions (UI) Conference, in partnership with the NSF Centers for Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) Program. 

### About the Conference 
This conference was established to facilitate dissemination and exchange of hypothesis-based research on interventions and initiatives that broaden participation in science and engineering research careers. The conference is designed to create a dialogue among behavioral/social science and education researchers, evaluators, and faculty in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields who participate in intervention programs. Workshops, sessions, and posters will communicate effective strategies from successful STEM intervention programs, present results from empirical research studies, and synthesize the translation of research findings into practice on STEM learning, undergraduate research, graduate education, and student retention.

Thank you again, and welcome! 
**[Download Program Agenda](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rTKTrWC2DOqnIF06po5xo4buAL3mPTqZ/view?usp=sharing)**

This conference was established to facilitate dissemination and exchange of hypothesis-based research on interventions and initiatives that broaden participation in science and engineering research careers. The conference is designed to create a dialogue among behavioral/social science and education researchers, evaluators, and faculty in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields who participate in intervention programs.

To contribute to the diversity of the next generation of NIH funded biomedical researchers, ensuring that undergraduate student participants enter and succeed in graduate school is one of the goals of the BUILDing SCHOLARS center at the University of Texas at El Paso. To accomplish this goal, the center implemented the Johnson and Bozeman Asset Bundles model. Using the Student Hallmarks of Success developed by the NIH Diversity Program Consortium as guidance, and mapping each program activity to the model, academic metrics in combination with results from a comprehensive evaluation plan for the first three cohorts of participants will be presented.<

Developing the Biomedical Researchers of the Future at a Hispanic Serving Institution

Plenary IV

UIIMPACTS (Inclusive Matching for Professional Advancement and Career Training in Science) addresses the issue of social/professional integration in STEM across all training levels from high school to professional in providing a public square for dissemination, networking, professional matching and discourse across all STEM. Users of UIIMPACTS (uiimpacts.com), can post, form, moderate and participle in affinity groups, set up e-portfolios, as well as network across disciplines and career stage. User profiles can be formed for individuals, programs and institutions that include demographic information as well as stage in training, research and professional interests. A personal statement of up to 500 words can be posted as part of a user’s profile and an accompanying e-Portfolio can be populated with any work products that include videos, published or unpublished abstracts and manuscripts, as well as presentations. Any user can form groups for mentoring, research interest, professional and social and other affinity interests. Like in any other social media platform, users can post items including media within their group as well as for the general community. The platform also facilitates direct messaging between users/programs and institutions. 

Consider a student attending ERN or ABRCMS sharing their UIIMPACTS identification to prospective programs and institutions where others can see a full representation of that student that include their research experience, work products, level of academic accomplishments, career interests and a full personal statement. One can also consider the broader impacts of this platform in providing a mechanism for social integration and STEM related discourse for students and professionals. This platform also addresses the longstanding frustrations of institutions expressing difficulty in finding individuals from fragmented populations in STEM for training and professional recruitment. 

The UIIMPACTS platform also serves as a potential point of dissemination and recruitment for programs and institutions. Institutions and programs, like individual users, can set up profiles that are searchable where they can have program information (videos, documents etc) in program e-Portfolios. Programs with premium accounts can have searchable access to the database of users to reach potential trainees and employees. Currently, there is a tool available to users that allow searches of all accredited academic and training programs listed with the Department of Education. The search engine can focus geography through selection of city and state. This can be very useful for stunts and professional looking of institutions that have programs that cover Theo professional and training interests. There are other tools in development, including career exploration through aligning lifestyle, work values and work activities with STEM occupations. This tool will provide among many types of information: median salaries and employment projections, certifications, skills, knowledge areas, surveys of those currently employed, and other supporting information as well as videos and training related information individual to each occupation. 



UI IMPACTS: A Public Square Social Media Platform for STEM Mentoring, Networking, and Professional Advancement

This session will provide information regarding publishing in the Understanding Interventions Journal. Attendees will learn of the translational approach to mutually inform practice and scholarship; requirements for the types of publications (letters, communications and full papers) published in the journal; its review processes as well as the supports provided to potential authors including workshops and direct mentoring to facilitate manuscript development. 


UI Journal: Disseminating Interventions Research

Phase II CREST Center for Interface Design and Engineered Assembly of
Low-dimensional Systems (IDEALS II)
Maria C.Tamargo, 1 PI; Swapan K. Gayen, 1 Ilona Kretzschmar, 1 Lia Krusin-Elbaum 1 and
Gustavo Lopez, 2 co-PIs
1 The City College of CUNY, 160 Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031
2 Lehman College CUNY, Bronx, NY 10468
NSF Award No. EES-2112550

Building upon the salient accomplishments of Phase I IDEALS (IDEALS I), IDEALS II research
addresses the need to strengthen the nation’s leadership in materials capabilities in the frontier
areas of quantum materials, bioinspired reconfigurable materials, and photonic materials and
technologies that address critical national needs, elevating CCNY as a premier research
institution in these fields. IDEALS II also pursues frontier research and education transformative
goals, including the following activities: (a) integrating research and education to enhance
student experience and train tomorrow’s leaders; (b) implementing new strategies that focus on
professional development and placement of students after graduation, enriched mentoring
through preemptive interventions, and faculty awareness training to improve student success; (c)
expanding recruitment practices and transforming institutional policy to ensure sustainable
diversity at all levels, and (d) introducing the CCNY Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship
program aimed at enhancing faculty diversity.

Do’s and Don'ts for CREST Phase II

MARC at CU Denver: Perspectives on Implementation

Reimagining Engineering Education Through a Community of Practice

"**Introduction.** Mentoring has been demonstrated to increase science identity, retention and academic performance. Students that develop science identity and sense of belonging are more likely to persist in STEM areas. Mentoring can also provide psychosocial support by normalizing struggles and reinforcing identity in the field. Peer-mentoring is a form of mentorship that involves a more experienced student guiding a less experienced student through social, emotional and/or academic support. The benefits of peer-mentoring have been observed to help Latina/o students find role models, access emotional and academic support, and career help, thereby increasing integration into their university. Peer-mentoring has also been credited as one of the factors which lead to the success of Black undergraduate women students graduating with STEM degrees at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). For Latinas and Black in STEM, peer mentoring has been shown to support  student integration and persistence, and increase academic performance and degree achievement. 

**Goal of Research:** We conducted a 1-year pilot intervention that had the goal of providing female Latina and Black STEM undergraduates, usually underrepresented (URM) in STEM, with a social, professional and academic support structure by inviting them to join a peer-mentoring program. Here we present the findings  

**Methods.** First-year science students attending a 4-year public college were invited to join a peer-mentoring program. Peer-mentors were recruited from upper level cohorts, with junior and senior standing in cell and molecular biology, toxicology, and forensic science majors. A total of 20 first-year female students joined the program in September and 8 upper-level female students joined as mentors. All participants were Latinas and/or Black. Participants formed small groups of on average three first-year students that met with a mentor monthly during the semester. In these meetings that lasted between 30-60 minutes, the mentors and mentees shared ideas, resources, discussed strategies and shared concerns. The whole cohort met three times during the semester, and participated in seminars in which invited speakers shared their professional experience and the work they were currently doing. The invited speakers were also female scientists from underrepresented backgrounds in STEM. We assessed the student’s experiences using a 6-question survey at the end of each mentor-mentee meeting, that evaluated the implementation of the intervention and identified strengths and areas in need of improvement. The survey was voluntary and anonymous. The survey contained Likert-scale items and one opened-ended question. We use Leximancer software to conduct a thematic analysis and a relational (or semantic) analysis of the interview data. The software provides word frequency counts and co-occurrence counts of concepts present in participants' responses.  

**Results.** A total of 28 students participated in this intervention, all of which are URM in STEM (either African American or Hispanic). In the fall semester only 14 students joined the program, but 6 additional students requested to participate in the spring semester for a total of 20 participants. We originally had 8 mentors, but only 7 mentors completed the program. Groups were formed in the fall, and mentor-mentee sets continue to work together through the school year. New participants joined groups that already existed. In the quantitative part of the survey students were asked about their experience at each meeting. 58% and 67% responded that they ‘strongly agree’ to the statements  “this was a productive session” and “I look forward to my next mentoring session”. The qualitative assessment of the mentees’ responses showed that  ‘careers’, ‘internships’ and ‘time’ were among the most frequent terms used in the responses. Compound concepts showed ‘careers & goals’ and ‘internship & study’ to have the highest prominence in the meeting category, followed by “time & study’ and ‘helpful & goals’. These highlight the areas of most concern to the students attending. The concept map showed a large component in which terms like ‘improved’, ‘mentor’, ‘discussed’, ‘needs’, ‘helpful’ and ‘opportunities’ were the most frequent. The analysis identified top strengths of the intervention including 1)The mentorship program is comprehensive, covering a wide range of topics from academics to personal development, 2) Mentors are approachable and friendly, fostering a comfortable environment for mentees, and 3) The program provides a platform for mentees to discuss their goals and aspirations. In addition, some concerns were also highlighted by the software including, 1) The program may not be able to accommodate all the topics and concerns that mentees want to discuss due to time constraints, 2) The program may not be able to provide sufficient guidance and support for mentees who join late or miss meetings, and 3) The program may not be able to maintain its quality and effectiveness if it becomes too flexible and unstructured. This initial analysis provides suggestions on how to implement peer-mentoring programs and which aspects to keep in mind during their organization. 

**Conclusions and Discussions.** Our intervention adds to current evidence supporting the need for programs that aid first-year students in facing challenges associated with the college transition. It particularly highlights the importance of these support structures for URM females in STEM majors.  

**Acknowledgments.** This research is funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation in support of  the Black, Race, Ethnic Studies Initiative (BRESI) at the City University of New York (CUNY)"

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